RIZZO, Antonio
(b. ca. 1430, Verona, d. ca. 1499)

Adam and Eve

c. 1485
Marble, height 205 and 202 cm
Palazzo Ducale, Venice

Three full-length marble statues by Rizzo stood originally in niches in the Arco Foscari in the Palazzo Ducale courtyard. They are a man in antique Roman armour, usually called Mars, and Adam and Eve, two of the earliest nude statues of the Venetian Renaissance. Now they have been substituted by bronze copies.

Adam and Eve are elegant, softly modelled figures, the Eve in a pose deriving from a Venus Pudica and the Adam gazing upwards with raised head and parted lips.